Bakker LV - Nau's Ark

[Sci-2]

It's the AMA from August 2 2017.

I believe that is the only one Bakker did, at least post TUC.

[Darth Richard II]

Just now, Sci-2 said:

It's the AMA from August 2 2017.

I believe that is the only one Bakker did, at least post TUC.

Well, see, that shows how much my brain is working today.

[Sci-2]

Just now, Darth Richard II said:

Well, see, that shows how much my brain is working today.

No worries I think we'd all love another interview digging into, if not WTF Happened, then at least *How* the Fuck did it Happen.

[Darth Richard II]

2 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

No worries I think we'd all love another interview digging into, if not WTF Happened, then at least *How* the Fuck did it Happen.

I dunno, I know what happened, I mean, I guess my biggest question that didn't get answered was WHAT IS THE NO GOD DAMMNIT.

Also why did we have to read 100 pages of cannibal rape. And maybe why did we have to read all that emo Esmenet shit.

[Sci-2]

3 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I dunno, I know what happened, I mean, I guess my biggest question that didn't get answered was WHAT IS THE NO GOD DAMMNIT.

Also why did we have to read 100 pages of cannibal rape. And maybe why did we have to read all that emo Esmenet shit.

The lesser Darth Richard the 2nd rages against his ignorance, demands satisfaction....but this only means that the Greater Darth Richard the 2nd is drawn to the Waters of Being...

 

[Hello World]

9 hours ago, .H. said:

The question of what was Kellhus' plan is still on the table.  The question of the extent of Ajokli's involvement in the whole series is open.  The question of what role Mimara really plays with the No-God active is a major one.  Even minor shit like, did Kellhus really love Esmenet is still unanswered really.  I mean, we learned some stuff but what the hell is the No-God, really?  There's definitely questions...

All these questions existed prior to the Unholy Consult, and there are many more from the first trilogy. And let's not forget that Bakker was well aware that his series was already filled with many questions when he made that comment, and fans wanted answers more than anything.

Quote

Answer: Hindsight often has a tendency to clarify things - there are revelations to come, certainly!

To be fair, he only said that "most" of the burning questions will get revealed in TUC, and here he's only saying that "revelations" are to come, but he didn't say what kind of revelations. So my money is on he's going to reveal the rest of the burning questions in TNG. (I'm starting to see why Bakker uses italics so much: it's fun )

If he wasn't being deliberately misleading then he probably thinks that the Ajokli reveal + the Progenitor infodump is the g-string moment.

I don't expect the next series to be a regular continuation of the story, he said they're going to be three or four books or more (which will take at least 15 years if he finds a publisher) and they're going to be more like long form Atrocity Tales. Sure, some things will be revealed just like in the False Sun, but the story as he envisioned it is over and he doesn't have a grand plan for what's going to happen next.

My guess is that if you're mostly interested in the metaphysics and underlying philosophies the next series is going to be exactly what you're looking for because Bakker is just going to use the setting of the No-God to explore these things.

[Darth Richard II]

I thought the Kellhus loving Esmenet was confirmed by Bakker to just be Ajolki fucking with him. 

[Sci-2]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

I thought the Kellhus loving Esmenet was confirmed by Bakker to just be Ajolki fucking with him. 

These are the types of things I could've done without knowing - can't help but feel the wrong things were revealed.

[Darth Richard II]

Someone should um

tale all the stuff we know per Bakker and such aNd consolidate it in a post or something. Like I’m pretty sure he said mimmara abd the eye where more or less red herrings but I can’t remember exactly where, plus the ambien is making me loopy so I don’t know if I’m making sense.

[.H.]

11 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah I’ve lost track of the argument again but no I don’t think Bakker is a terrible person, I just think he has a, hmm, not sure how to phrase this, a bad response to criticism, plus a tendency to pat himself on the back a bit too much. I also don’t think the series is terrible. Trust me, if I hated as much as certain people like to think I do I would have gotten read of my copies a long ago.

Well, I was mainly be hyperbolic to illustrate a point though.  That, if someone (and I apologize for singling you out by that) wanted to make the case that Bakker is just a terrible person, there is evidence there to do so.  Thing is, in reality, we actually have the same outlook on things: we both think Bakker could have and should have handled himself better, and we both believe the series could have been written better.

5 hours ago, Hello World said:

All these questions existed prior to the Unholy Consult, and there are many more from the first trilogy. And let's not forget that Bakker was well aware that his series was already filled with many questions when he made that comment, and fans wanted answers more than anything.

That's a fair point.  I don't know.  I simply have no idea what Bakker thinks we wonder about the series, because there have been multiple times where things he thought were explicitly clear not only weren't clear at all, they weren't even in the actual books.  So, when he says he says "questions will be revealed" I have no idea what he thinks we had questions about before, or what new ones would be.

5 hours ago, Hello World said:

To be fair, he only said that "most" of the burning questions will get revealed in TUC, and here he's only saying that "revelations" are to come, but he didn't say what kind of revelations. So my money is on he's going to reveal the rest of the burning questions in TNG. (I'm starting to see why Bakker uses italics so much: it's fun )

If he wasn't being deliberately misleading then he probably thinks that the Ajokli reveal + the Progenitor infodump is the g-string moment.

He well might.  Like I said, he has a very different view of the series than we do.  In no small part because he implicitly knows a great deal of things that we don't, because he forgot to/deliberately did not put them in the books.  So, indeed, in his mind, revelations about Ark and the Progenitors could be a huge reveal.  Or that the Mutilated are running the show.  Or that Ajokli has been inflitrating Kellhus "the whole time."  It's rather hard to prove someone lied about a subjective valuation.  Was he misleading?  Probably, I don't know.

5 hours ago, Hello World said:

I don't expect the next series to be a regular continuation of the story, he said they're going to be three or four books or more (which will take at least 15 years if he finds a publisher) and they're going to be more like long form Atrocity Tales. Sure, some things will be revealed just like in the False Sun, but the story as he envisioned it is over and he doesn't have a grand plan for what's going to happen next.

My guess is that if you're mostly interested in the metaphysics and underlying philosophies the next series is going to be exactly what you're looking for because Bakker is just going to use the setting of the No-God to explore these things.

He did mention that, but since it's not fully planned out, it's hard to say what we'd get, if we get anything.

I've always been more interesting the the thematics than in the narrative.  I've said numerous times that I don't like any of the characters.  Not only in these books, but in almost every book I've ever read.  I guess I am just weird like that.

5 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

I thought the Kellhus loving Esmenet was confirmed by Bakker to just be Ajolki fucking with him. 

Quote

12.) Does Kellhus love Esmenet?

Answer:
12.) She's a blindspot, possessing some consequence, but no more than an anomaly.

It's not really Ajokli fucking with him.  It's his own ignorance/Darkness/atavistic psychological structure that means she is that anomaly.  In other words, he does have feelings for her, but he doesn't consciously, deliberately love her as we would really phrase it.

3 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Someone should um

tale all the stuff we know per Bakker and such aNd consolidate it in a post or something. Like I’m pretty sure he said mimmara abd the eye where more or less red herrings but I can’t remember exactly where, plus the ambien is making me loopy so I don’t know if I’m making sense.

I've tried to do this elsewhere, since here it would just get buried as a random post and lost in a random thread, but one, it's a lot of work, two, it's hard to not miss things still, and three, I think no one really cares, they'd rather just remember things as they'd like.

[.H.]

6 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

I reread the AMA yesterday, and that came up and he said something short and to the effect of "Esmenet is a blind spot."

I quoted that in my post just above yours.

7 minutes ago, Triskjavikson said:

Has anyone pointed out what a strange metaphor the g-string comment is?  We've talked about how vulgar it is to be sure, but also part of the point of a g-string, at least in my understanding, is that it was already quite revealing.  There was little else to reveal at that point.  I don't think Bakker meant that in a clever way though.  I think he meant it like there were big reveals to come.

It's a weird thing to say in any case.  I don't know that it really implies answers.  Not sure nudity is an answer.  I don't know, it's silly and cryptic.  I really don't pay much mind to what he says, unless it's stated more as a fact.  His subjective evaluation of what our subjective evaluation of a subjective thing will be kind of seems, I don't know, like nonsense?

[Kalbear]

17 hours ago, .H. said:

But aren't any questions going to be subjective?

Not really. As an example, BSG asking the question 'who are the final five' is a question that I think everyone was wondering the  answer to who was watching it. Same with 'Who is Jacob' on Lost. I'm not sure that there is even that level of agreement on the general questions. 

17 hours ago, .H. said:

It's plausible to me that things in the series do have thematic meaning, but that the narrative arc is not planned out past TUC.  Maybe that isn't possible, but that's what I figured.

That's my feeling as well. I also think that there's a whole lot of things that are also intended to evoke meaning - thematic or narrative - but don't have anything there. 

The hard part is figuring out what is what. 

17 hours ago, .H. said:

Well, I guess then I am wondering what the difference between "meaning" and "actual meaning" is?  Is it the difference between a subjective reader's and the author's definitively proscribed meaning?  I guess I am just strange in not really caring if we get that.  To me, it's probably more interesting that we can supply more of our own meaning, rather than whatever Bakker declares.  But I find it hard to believe that there are things in the book with no deliberate purpose.  I don't think Bakker flipped coins to decide what elements are in there.  Sure, maybe every element is not narratively meaningful, but I do think they are thematically so.  So, if Esmenet is an inverted Mary parallel, I don't think that is willy-nilly.  Mary isn't just some random lady.  She is invoked for a reason, even if it isn't narratively important.

Or, maybe I just don't even understand what meaning is.

Sure, I'll clarify. I was largely talking about narrative meaning here. As an example, the tapestry Mimara sees where she sees herself in it. Is that thematically meaningful? Kinda, maybe. Is it narratively meaningful? Normally I would say yes, absolutely, but my suspicion is that the answer is no - it isn't a clue, it isn't an implied question that will have an answer, it's just a random bit of coolness thrown in with no planned payoff. 

For me, that's not 'cool' to provide our own meaning, because this isn't a subjective value. Mimara being prophecized or being a coincidence isn't a subjective experience; it's an objective fact (or not), and both have their own storyline behind it that might be interesting - but debating them isn't something to do with what thematic value we have - it's debating basic storyline concepts. In other places, it's simply weak storytelling period, such as Kelmomas' magical journey to the Golden Room. 

And that's the other thing I would say - unlike Lost or BSG, where they knew at some point they'd have to give a payoff, and even if they didn't have it planned from the getgo they knew they would do something, I don't think Bakker actually plans to do payoffs for most of this stuff. I do think he did it deliberately, but I'm of the opinion that Bakker put things in deliberately to make people think that they're meaningful, but they aren't ever going to be addressed, and that's by design. There's a whole lot of coincidences that are just thrown in, by design, and only some - or maybe none- will ever matter. 

[Sci-2]

The g-string coming off means we're getting the major revelations that've been "teased" across the previous six books. For Bakker the sight of the stripper's vagina = something major being revealed, guessing that was the Ajokli reveal and Kelmomas as the No-God.

We also learned dragons like vaginas.

Regarding things like Mimara seeing herself, I suspect it has to do with the issues of Space/Time that accrue when you try to take a world that has physics like ours but cram in a lot of added aspects to make an enchanted world.

And in that vein...

17 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

Keeping on with this digging, went back to TGO. Here's what happens when Saubon dies:

...

There's that moment where Saubon is body-less, experiencing Void. It seems that was when he was a monad, or in Bakker's terms, an "Observational Frame" that was not confined to embodiment.

Unfortunately the situation doesn't last, and Saubon is caught in a subtle body that seems to throw him back to the moment he had almost died previously...

Malowebi also, before being drawn into a Decapitant, sees the world that includes his body. Further suggestion that bodies are lenses to constrain the Observational Frame:

"Somehow, from a vantage he could not quite explain, he saw himself hanging before Anasûrimbor Kellhus, the World spinning ruin around them. The man’s sword scissored across the angle of the sun, and Malowebi screamed as his head tipped from his shoulders and dropped to the woven earth … His head! Rolling like a cabbage."

 

[Callan S.]

I don't understand why the basic parallel between A: The god things being shut out/meaning in Earwa dying and B: The ending (ignoring how the great ordeal is destroyed) having it's climaxes snuffed out, why that isn't seen as meaningful in itself?

Sometimes it seems like a share market, where people choose books to read like they're buying shares and if Sauron wins/the share price slumps, they say 'fuck this shit, I'm out of here'. Ie, what happens after affects the value of engaging the share/book before, like that quote from Peterson before.

But really can you take a world full of meaning and crush out meaning from it? Can that question itself be meaningful? Or is it just a stock market crash? And are the bulk of readers blind to that pattern of fantasy world investment?

[Darth Richard II]

I think it's cause readers want an ending that doesn't suck. Also see The Matrix Trilogy, Lost, BSG.

[.H.]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Not really. As an example, BSG asking the question 'who are the final five' is a question that I think everyone was wondering the  answer to who was watching it. Same with 'Who is Jacob' on Lost. I'm not sure that there is even that level of agreement on the general questions.

I see what you are saying.  This is why I feel that PoN is narratively superior.  Because it's a heck of a lot more clear what happened, even if it's not entirely clear why, or what it means down the line.  In a way, we got a bunch of answers, like who made Ark, what its role was, and that the Mutilated were behind the scenes there.  But each of those in turn lead to more questions.  I guess we deserved, in a way, Wutteät yelling at us about how "truth is infinite."

In a way, we are all just a Ryan Reynolds gif, asking, "but why?" forever.  Because I don't think Bakker is really at it to give us narrative, or thematic, bottom.  Which kind of sucks.  But is also kind of interesting, because we can reevaluate the books at any time.  It sure would have been nice to learn more about Mimara and the Eye, but for whatever reason, that is probably for a different volume.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

That's my feeling as well. I also think that there's a whole lot of things that are also intended to evoke meaning - thematic or narrative - but don't have anything there. 

The hard part is figuring out what is what.

Right, I mean, there is a chance that some stuff is there just to "fill things out."  But I still have a hard time believing that things were put into the books for absolutely no reason.  If it's filler, it's filler to make things seems more "real."  My guess though is that there isn't a whole lot of that.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Sure, I'll clarify. I was largely talking about narrative meaning here. As an example, the tapestry Mimara sees where she sees herself in it. Is that thematically meaningful? Kinda, maybe. Is it narratively meaningful? Normally I would say yes, absolutely, but my suspicion is that the answer is no - it isn't a clue, it isn't an implied question that will have an answer, it's just a random bit of coolness thrown in with no planned payoff. 

For me, that's not 'cool' to provide our own meaning, because this isn't a subjective value. Mimara being prophecized or being a coincidence isn't a subjective experience; it's an objective fact (or not), and both have their own storyline behind it that might be interesting - but debating them isn't something to do with what thematic value we have - it's debating basic storyline concepts. In other places, it's simply weak storytelling period, such as Kelmomas' magical journey to the Golden Room. 

And that's the other thing I would say - unlike Lost or BSG, where they knew at some point they'd have to give a payoff, and even if they didn't have it planned from the getgo they knew they would do something, I don't think Bakker actually plans to do payoffs for most of this stuff. I do think he did it deliberately, but I'm of the opinion that Bakker put things in deliberately to make people think that they're meaningful, but they aren't ever going to be addressed, and that's by design. There's a whole lot of coincidences that are just thrown in, by design, and only some - or maybe none- will ever matter. 

Well, I can't argue about the Kelmomas thing, because I agree.  On that tapestry though, I think we are apt, in light of having no solid information, to try to find it.  So, something in the books must be concrete evidence about Mimara, right?  It's plausible not.  Which I am not saying is a good thing, but it just might not be.  What the tapestry might be though, is just yet another clue about how time is not linear when it comes to Outside forces.  Just like how Kel was always the No-God, Mimara was always the bearer of the Eye.  She was always something of the "real prophet" even before she was even born.  Bakker even admits this doesn't make sense in the AMA:

Quote

The question to ask is why bother gerrymandering anything, when that everything has already happened? The notion of Gods working within the framework of eternity is incoherent, but it remains a staple of our cognitive past. So there's no way the event is going to bear any sustained critical reflection. I tried to prepare the way in a host of different ways, to make the earthquake feel inevitable when it did happen... You're the first to raise this issue larry, but I'll definitely keep my open for seconds moving forward.

So, there are probably numerous things that are seemingly "meaningless" that just point to Eärwan time being all timey-whimy without more narrative implications.  Maybe I am just wrong though, or more apt to want to sift through stuff.  I don't know.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

I see what you are saying.  This is why I feel that PoN is narratively superior.  Because it's a heck of a lot more clear what happened, even if it's not entirely clear why, or what it means down the line.  In a way, we got a bunch of answers, like who made Ark, what its role was, and that the Mutilated were behind the scenes there.  But each of those in turn lead to more questions.  I guess we deserved, in a way, Wutteät yelling at us about how "truth is infinite."

Huh. I'd disagree with the bolded, too. How many people missed entirely Kelmomas didn't kill Kellhus? Or even what happened with Kellhus and Kelmomas and why? Or why Kelmomas was invisible to the gods? 

How many people missed that women are objectively less worth than men?

What happened to Koringhus?

Is Serwa alive? Is Nau-Cayuti? Why did she miss that 100th stone? 

Why is Akka dreaming of NC? 

Is Shaeonnara still in charge, or are the Dunyain? 

What was Kellhus' actual plan? Like, seriously, what was the entire point of the Great Ordeal? 

What was the Dunsult plan? Again, like, seriously, what was the entire point of the Consult? 

These are not particularly small questions, nor were they all questions that just arose recently. Things like knowing what Kellhus' actual plan was are kind of big deals, and we still have not a clue. 

And then there are stylistic things that we have no idea what they're about either - things like the head on the pole, or the decapitant thing, or Mimara's present tense. There's a whole lot  that is simply not explained at all - and you can happily blame Madness for being a shitty editor, but the end of the day it's Bakker's work, and it's certainly not particularly clear. Really, you can't argue both that it's a good series because it's so subjective AND it's a good series because it's so clear and defined. 

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

Right, I mean, there is a chance that some stuff is there just to "fill things out."  But I still have a hard time believing that things were put into the books for absolutely no reason.  If it's filler, it's filler to make things seems more "real."  My guess though is that there isn't a whole lot of that.

 

I think it was put there for a reason - to mislead readers into thinking it mattered. To be really clear, I don't think it was randomly done. I think it was deliberately done, put in to make readers openly engage that meaning-making circuit. What I don't think is that it was done with a specific ending in mind. In fact, I think it was done without any ending planned at all. It isn't filler. It's a thematic element to make people disappointed in the lack of answers after looking for them. Again, Lost and BSG did this really well, and really often. The Leftovers made an entire series about this - about there not being answers, but people desperate to find them anyway. 

5 minutes ago, .H. said:

 

Well, I can't argue about the Kelmomas thing, because I agree.  On that tapestry though, I think we are apt, in light of having no solid information, to try to find it.  So, something in the books must be concrete evidence about Mimara, right?  It's plausible not.  Which I am not saying is a good thing, but it just might not be.  What the tapestry might be though, is just yet another clue about how time is not linear when it comes to Outside forces.  Just like how Kel was always the No-God, Mimara was always the bearer of the Eye.  She was always something of the "real prophet" even before she was even born.  Bakker even admits this doesn't make sense in the AMA:

So, there are probably numerous things that are seemingly "meaningless" that just point to Eärwan time being all timey-whimy without more narrative implications.  Maybe I am just wrong though, or more apt to want to sift through stuff.  I don't know.

Right - or they're there just because they seem important but aren't that big a deal. There's at least a couple things that I recall Bakker just going 'no, that's bullshit' 

[Darth Richard II]

The Bakker as Troll theory rears it's head again.

[Darth Richard II]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Right - or they're there just because they seem important but aren't that big a deal. There's at least a couple things that I recall Bakker just going 'no, that's bullshit' 

Right. I don't know why this keeps coming up. Bakker admitted all the stuff people pored over and over and over for threads and threads was just a bunch of meaningless bullshit. The head on a pole thing is a good example. The explanation ended up being one day Bakker saw his reflection in a  window and thought it was cool.

[Sci-2]

1 minute ago, Darth Richard II said:

Right. I don't know why this keeps coming up. Bakker admitted all the stuff people pored over and over and over for threads and threads was just a bunch of meaningless bullshit. The head on a pole thing is a good example. The explanation ended up being one day Bakker saw his reflection in a  window and thought it was cool.

Sorry, but is there a quote for this? My understanding is Bakker was inspired by the reflection (in a bar I believe) but the Head on a Pole still has meaning insofar as it relates to the metaphysics of reality and how the Daimos's "Inversions" are used to cross safely into the Hells.